The Battle Over Ballast Waters Posted Monday, July 11, 2011 at 8:15:31 PM     Alexandria Bay, NY 1000 Islands  Comments  Unique Views 2612/Total Views 2646

"Let’s say you’re the captain of a ship tied up at one of dozens of ports along the St. Lawrence Seaway or the Great Lakes. You’re taking on a cargo of iron ore or corn or salt. As you fill your hold, you keep your ship level by pumping water out of your ballast tanks. The trouble is that all of that ballast water could have been collected just about anywhere on the planet.

James Tierney is assistant commissioner for water quality for New York state’s Conservation Department and an expert on ballast water pollution, he says, “Ballast water may be sucked out of a port in the Black Sea, or Singapore, or Amsterdam. And then it’s brought over and it’s released. So ballast water has been a very effective mechanism to bring in all sorts of invasive species."

Tierney says tiny creatures literally hide in the scum and saltwater stored inside these ships. Once they're dumped here in the Seaway they are free to spread. And that’s exactly what they’ve done, turning up in waterways from Quebec in the east to Minnesota in the west."

Read more.. follow the link below..
http://www.wbez.org/frontandcenter/2011-07-11/battle-over-ballast-waters-88934

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